Ian Edwards on Black Comedy and Hipster Comedy

Here’s an interesting interview with comedian Ian Edwards, who’s currently writing for Fox’s In Living Color. In it, he laments the modern comedy scene’s lack of a real showcase for black standups (like Def Jam on HBO in the 90s, for example) and the distinctions that remain between black and “extra-white” hipster comics:

When I worked on Chocolate News, we were making a black news story and if we wanted to talk about stuff that was going on now, [Comedy Central] wouldn’t let us because that would go into Jon Stewart’s theme. He was going to allow us to follow him and we can’t touch his theme. The black shit is the black shit. The hipster shit is the hipster shit.

Edwards also talks about Tyler Perry, his relationship with Patrice O’Neal and the struggle to remember to have fun during shows. And Youtube vs. TV and his experience writing for In the Flow with Affion Crocket and wow, there is a lot of ground covered in this interview, you should probably just go read it.